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LOGAN — This winter hasn't been ideal for Scott Barber and his two best friends.
There hasn't been much snow for a man who just wants to run around with his two canine pals in a dogsled. On top of the lack of snow is the poor condition of the snow that has come down.
"This is awful actually, I mean, I put dog booties onto my dogs," Scott Barber, dogsledder. "Mainly so that they don't cut up their pads."
To give a better idea of why this kind of winter is happening, some Utah State University researchers took KSL six miles off-road to the T.W. Daniel Experimental Forest.
"We're looking at water in all its forms," said Scott Jones, from Utah State University's department of plants, soils and climate. "From the snowpack you see here about 80 percent of Utah's water comes from winter snowpack."
Twelve different towers span the 200-by-400 yard area. There are devices that measure wind, gasses and even solar radiation to look at how the snow is interacting with the climate around it. All this gives researchers a better idea of what it all means for those in the valley floor.
A warming climate definitely has impact on the snow. I really hope mother nature figures herself out here over the next year.
–Scott Barber, dogsledder
"There's more rain, less snow during the winter," said Danny Barandiaran, a Ph.D. student in climate science. "That has big effects on the hydrology of the area."
Big enough that drought conditions could likely increase in the coming years. Barandiaran said while there are wet and dry cycles every several years, we are still on a warming trend overall.
"In general, things are warming up and there's a whole lot of various changes that come with that," Barandiaran said.
The researchers hope to better understand what those changes will mean. USU has gathered data at the site since 2007, but that's a short time when it comes to creating models that will hopefully give them a peek into the future.
"A warming climate definitely has impact on the snow," Barber said. "I really hope mother nature figures herself out here over the next year."
